Work Text:
He tells himself, often, that respect should be simple; that it should sit cleanly in the chest, like a badge polished to a dull shine, something you pin on and forget about—steady, uncomplicated, professional. It does not, in his experience, behave that way when it comes to Ryu Jaekwan and Agent Choi; it tangles, instead, with instincts he does not like naming, with the shape of his upbringing, with the quiet, ugly reflexes that rise before he can stamp them down.
Ryu Jaekwan respects him. That part is true.
He respects Choi’s record, the way civilians live because of him; he respects the sharpness of his perception, the unnerving accuracy with which he reads a room, a person, a situation that is already halfway to disaster. He respects, too, the way Choi never hesitates—never, even when hesitation might be the smarter choice, the safer one, the one that keeps an agent alive long enough to be useful tomorrow.
But.
The word sits there, heavy; the kind of word that comes with teeth.
“Agent Choi is capable,” Agent Wool says, once, in the middle of a debrief, voice even and measured; “no one’s questioning that.” He pauses—too long, perhaps; long enough that the room tilts toward him, expectant. “But sometimes… I think he isn’t practical enough for Bureau work.”
There is a shift, subtle, almost imperceptible; a few glances exchanged, the careful neutrality of people who know better than to step into something that smells faintly of personal grievance.
Agent Wool keeps going anyway; he always does, once he’s started. “He prioritizes civilians at the cost of himself,” he says, and then, because he cannot quite help it, because something in him insists on framing it—categorizing it, reducing it, making it manageable—he adds, quieter, almost wry, “I suppose that’s… his bleeding omega heart.”
A joke, if you tilt your head; a statement, if you don’t.
No one laughs.
/
The thing is—he knows he’s biased.
He knows it in the same way he knows how to read a threat radius, how to calculate disaster collapse, how to gauge the exact second something will break under pressure; it is knowledge worn into his bones, learned early, learned thoroughly, learned in a house where roles were rigid and expectations clearer than any training manual the Bureau ever handed him.
His mother, before she died, had been… soft, in a way; not weak, never that, but soft in the sense that she bent around others, accommodated, gave, gave, gave until there was nothing left to take. His father had called it a virtue. Ryu Jaekwan, even then, had thought it looked like erosion.
Omegas, in that house, had been something to protect, something to shield, something to place carefully out of harm’s way; not because they were incapable, necessarily, but because the world was—he remembers the phrasing—“not made for them.”
He had outgrown that, he tells himself.
Mostly.
There are pieces that linger; not beliefs, not in the clean, declarative sense, but impulses—habits of thought that surface before reason can intervene, that color perception before he has the chance to correct it. He hates them; he recognizes them; he still, sometimes, acts around them.
/
Choi does not behave like something that needs protecting.
That might be part of the problem.
There is a kind of dissonance, watching him move through the field; the way civilians gravitate toward him as if pulled by something invisible, something warm and reassuring and impossible to ignore. They flock, sometimes literally—hands catching at his sleeves, voices overlapping, fear transmuting into a fragile sort of hope the moment he speaks.
He is kind. He is affable. He is—Ryu Jaekwan hates the word, but it fits—charming.
The Bureau notices; of course they do.
There are whispers, casual and not-so-casual; the kind and affable, charmingly handsome older unmated omega—who wouldn’t admire him, at least a little? There are crushes, too, half-hidden behind professionalism; glances that linger a second too long, volunteers for joint missions that stack suspiciously in his favor, the quiet, almost reverent way some of the younger agents say his name.
Ryu Jaekwan notices all of it.
He pretends he doesn’t.
He tells himself it is irrelevant; that admiration does not change operational outcomes, that attraction is a personal failing best compartmentalized and ignored. And yet—he finds himself cataloguing it anyway; who looks, how long, the way Choi smiles back, easy, unguarded, as if unaware of the effect he has, or worse—as if he knows, and chooses not to mitigate it.
It irritates him.
It does something else, too; something he refuses to name.
/
In the field, it becomes… inconvenient.
He would never say that out loud, not like that; he is not stupid, and he is not cruel, and he is aware—painfully aware—of how it would sound. But the thought is there, threading through his mind as he works, as he compensates, as he recalculates around variables that have nothing to do with the disaster itself and everything to do with the people caught in it.
Civilians slow down when Choi is nearby; they look at him instead of the exits, listen to him instead of the instructions barked over comms. They want reassurance, and he gives it; they want proximity, and he allows it, just enough to steady them, just enough to keep them from panicking.
Ryu Jaekwan, meanwhile, adjusts.
He shifts his positioning, accounts for blind spots, anticipates the way a crowd will bunch instead of disperse; he does it automatically, efficiently, without complaint—
—except, perhaps, in the quiet corners of his mind.
An omega in the field, he thinks sometimes, not quite consciously. An omega in this line of work.
And then, immediately after, sharper, reprimanding: He is not just an omega. He is Agent Choi.
Both things are true. That is, perhaps, the worst of it.
Because the second thought is correction. The first is instinct.
Because the first comes faster.
/
There are moments—small, fleeting, dangerous in their subtlety—when the conflict sharpens into something almost tangible.
He catches himself looking, once, in the narrow hallway of a temporary base; Choi has changed out of his uniform, the stiff lines of regulation fabric replaced with something looser, softer, that sits differently on his frame. It is not inappropriate, not even particularly revealing, but—
From that angle, Ryu Jaekwan sees the long line of his legs; the way they carry him, steady and unhurried, the faint, almost deceptive slenderness that belies the strength he knows is there. There is a slight curve at the waist, a shift in posture when he reaches for something on a higher shelf, the fabric pulling just enough to suggest shape without defining it.
It is—
He looks away.
Too familiar, the instinct that rises; too easy, the way his mind tries to slot the image into categories he has spent years unlearning. Grabbable, some treacherous part of him supplies, unbidden; lithe, another adds, assessing, comparing—stacking that frame against his own, broader, heavier, built for impact.
And then—worse—something possessive flickers, faint but undeniable; a thought shaped less like evaluation and more like entitlement, like the memory of hands that have steadied, guided, restrained. He has lifted bodies like that before—injured, exhausted, pliant with shock—and the overlap is enough to make his jaw tighten.
He resents it.
He resents that his first instinct is not respect, but assessment; not acknowledgment of capability, but an unconscious measuring of how easily that body could be overpowered, how quickly it would yield under force.
He hates that the thought does not come with fear for Choi—but with a strange, simmering irritation that Choi would put himself in situations where that vulnerability exists at all.
He has taken care of omegas before in the orphanage; not like this, not in this context, but in the practical, necessary ways of someone who grew up responsible for others. He has scented them, soothed them, carried them when needed; alphas, betas, omegas alike, all reduced to the same fragile state in the face of fear or injury.
He has always been professional.
He is, now.
But the thought lingers longer than it should; it curls, uncomfortable, at the base of his spine, equal parts awareness and something darker—something that edges toward condescension, toward the quiet assumption that he knows better, that he sees risks Choi is too… what, exactly, to see?
Soft.
The word disgusts him.
He thinks it anyway.
/
If any other omega came to him—bright-eyed, determined, asking about the Bureau, about the work, about what it means to stand on the edge of something catastrophic and hold the line—he would encourage them without hesitation.
Of course you can do it, he would say. This is about protecting people, about using what you have to make a difference. We need more agents like you.
He believes that.
He does.
But with Choi—
With Choi, the calculus shifts, irrationally, frustratingly, stubbornly.
Because Choi does not just protect people; he throws himself into the space between danger and everyone else, again and again and again, as if his own life is a currency he is willing to spend without limit. Because he smiles while he does it, easy and unbothered, as if it costs him nothing; because people respond to that, cling to it, rely on it in ways that make extraction harder, riskier, more complicated.
Because Ryu Jaekwan finds himself watching, and thinking—
—this is not sustainable.
—and, worse—
—this is not practical.
—and, worst of all—
—this is what omegas do, isn’t it?
He hates that thought the moment it forms.
/
“You’re overextending,” he says, once, blunt, when they are alone; the aftermath of a mission still clinging to them, the air thick with the residue of adrenaline and near-misses.
Choi glances at him, amused; he always seems amused, even when he shouldn’t be. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Ryu Jaekwan says, and there is something in his voice that edges toward frustration, toward something sharper. “You keep putting yourself in unnecessary danger. There are other ways to handle civilians without—”
“Without what?” Choi cuts in, mild, curious.
Without risking yourself, Ryu Jaekwan wants to say.
Without acting like your life is expendable, he almost says.
Instead, he exhales, slow, controlled. “Without compromising operational efficiency.”
Choi’s smile tilts, just slightly; something knowing in it, something that makes Ryu Jaekwan feel, abruptly, like he has been seen too clearly.
“I see,” he says.
There is a pause.
Ryu Jaekwan, against his better judgment, adds, “I respect you. You know that. But sometimes…” He hesitates, then pushes through, because he has never been good at leaving things unsaid. “Sometimes I think you’re not… suited for this kind of work.”
The words land, heavier than he intended.
Choi considers him for a moment; the expression on his face unreadable, the easy charm dialed down to something quieter, more deliberate.
“Because I’m an omega?” he asks, not accusing, not even particularly sharp—just… direct.
Ryu Jaekwan stiffens.
“No,” he says, immediately; reflexive, defensive. “That’s not what I—”
“Because I want to save people?” Choi offers, tilting his head.
“That’s part of the job,” Ryu Jaekwan snaps, more sharply than he means to. “But not at the cost of—”
“—myself,” Choi finishes, softly.
Silence stretches between them.
Ryu Jaekwan feels, suddenly, the weight of everything he has not said; the biases he has tried to bury, the instincts he has tried to override, the way they bleed through anyway, in moments like this.
There is something else, too—something uglier, quieter; a flicker of irritation that Choi will not concede the point, will not acknowledge the vulnerability Ryu Jaekwan sees so clearly, as if he has the right to decide the terms of his own risk.
As if Ryu Jaekwan’s assessment is not, by default, the more reasonable one.
“I grew up a certain way,” he says, finally, the admission dragged out of him with visible reluctance. “I know it affects how I think. I know I’m… not entirely objective.”
Choi hums, considering.
“That’s honest, at least,” he says.
It should feel like absolution.
It doesn’t.
/
Later, when he is alone, Ryu Jaekwan thinks about the way civilians look at Choi; the way agents do, too, when they think no one is paying attention. He thinks about the quiet gravity Choi carries, the ease with which he draws people in, the way he stands in the center of chaos and makes it feel, briefly, manageable.
He thinks about the line of his body, the deceptive slightness, the strength hidden in it; the way his mind had, for a moment, reduced all of that to something graspable, something containable.
He thinks about respect, and how it tangles with everything else.
He does not come to a conclusion.
He doubts he will, anytime soon.